黄卫峰在文章中,将《中国教育工作发展状况》的英文版(Development of China's educational services)批改得“体无完肤”,而这些文章均出自《2004中国年鉴》(China Yearbook 2004),该年鉴由新华社编辑出版,被认为是中国最权威、相对精确的年度出版物。
黄卫峰提出的英文翻译问题集中在以下几个方面:
1、低级错误
黄卫峰所列举的多个“低级错误”,稍微有些英语水平的人就能看出来这是粗心大意造成的错误。比如,在in reforms and development这个表达方式中,名词reforms(改革)用复数,另一个名词(development)却使用了单数形式。又如,在句子the number of primary schools and pupils studying at school were on the decline.中,主语number是单数形式。按照英语主谓数一致的原则,谓语动词应该使用单数形式was,而不是were。
在英文版中有一篇题为《Development of China's educational services》的文章,文中有这样的句子:The five-year consolidation rate for the pupils at primary school was 98.80 percent,basically the same with 2002.(这五年的小学学生巩固率为98.80%,基本上和2002年相同。)
黄卫峰就此批评道:“学生‘巩固率’能翻译成consolidation rate吗?而且,the same with存在搭配错误,应改为the same as。”
黄卫峰列出一个句子:By September 2003, 4.6 billion yuan was allocated to the program, accounting for 97.9 percent of the planned funds for the program, including 30 billion yuan from the central level and 1.6 billion yuan from localities.